I’ve Got the Willies Wednesday: Basements

Basements give me the willies. I’ve never had a fiery furnace awaiting me in the basement of anywhere I’ve lived, a la Home Alone, but even without a threatening furnace, basements are dark and damp, and incredibly creepy places.

The first house that I lived in that I can actually remember the basement from, was a three family house in which the basement was separated into several sections. There was a main section that had the washer and drier, and a Ping-Pong table, and some other fun stuff, but then there were two other sections that were split between the people who lived there. These sections were hallway type sections that you would enter through a separate door, and then seemed really narrow, and had stuff piled on either side of you. These were really the sections of the basement that creeped me out. They were incredibly dark, and cramped, and if someone or something cornered you in there, it would be tough to get out. Maybe it was the feeling of being trapped that really got to me. Adding to my fear, the older brother of one of the other families that lived there, told me that there was a ghost that lived in his family’s section, and dared me to go in and check it out. I thought about it for a second, but I must have learned my lesson from A Christmas Story, and Back to the Future Part 2/3, and I politely declined.

In the next house that my family moved to, in which my parents still live, the basement was separated into two sections. A finished section lined with fake wood panels, that had a bar area and everything, and an unfinished area containing the washer and drier, and other random things. This basement was great for a little while. We brought a rug down there, and had a black and white TV, and it was a neat hangout spot. But then our backyard flooded that next spring, and our sump pump did not work, and the basement was flooded, the rug ruined, and the hangout spot effectively destroyed for a while. Junk gathered down there, and in the bar area, a collection of randomness assembled.

….It looked somewhat like Kevin McCallister’s basement.

One day, when I was home alone, I went down to the basement to do laundry or something, and when I went down the stairs, I happened to look toward the bar area. In that area I thought I saw a man, perhaps my father, but no one was supposed to be home. Plus he was just standing there in the dark, completely still, and it was so creepy that I rushed back up the stairs.

From there I called out into the house, and downstairs to see if someone would answer, especially whoever had been in the basement, but I got no answer, which creeped me out even more. Eventually, after an extended period of silence, I went back down to the basement, armed with a weapon (I’m not sure what I brought down, but I hope it was something smart, like a chefs knife). I went down slowly, trying my darnedest to be absolutely quiet. I peeked around the corner, and looked toward the bar…..and what did I see? The figure of a man, in exactly the same position he had been in. So this time I was smart, and turned on the light, and over where the man was supposed to be, I saw a coat rack, a kite, and a hat…no man was there. These three ordinary, everyday objects, had been thrown together haphazardly, and formed the shape of a man (at least in the dark). I felt very silly!!! But that same day, my brother went down to the basement, and saw the same thing I did, and he was utterly creeped out as well. So it wasn’t just my overactive imagination.